This site is currently dedicated to covering the fortunes of the South Western High School MUSTANGS football team in York County, Pennsylvania. SOUTH WESTERN MUSTANGS GRIDIRON columns will be posted for a preseason review and following each game during the season. And we will follow my Alma Mater, the CUTTERS of Fair Lawn High School in Bergen County, New Jersey, with THE GRIDIRON columns by my twin brother Dick, the stadium announcer "Voice of the CUTTERS."

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Sunday, November 03, 2013

THE GRIDIRON 9-2013

By Dick Engelhardt

In Big North Conference (BNC) crossover action last Friday night
in Wanaque, the LANCERS of Lakeland
probably earned a spot in the North Jersey, Section 1, Group III playoffs with
a 49-0 victory over the CUTTERS of
Fair Lawn High. Fair Lawn Captains Thomas Koike, Richard Marchese, Mike Nieman
and Nick Perez went out for the coin toss. The LANCERS received and went ahead 7-0. Marc Terwilliger returned the
kick off to the 30 but the drive stalled and Lakeland returned the punt for a
TD and led 14-0. They led 42-0 at the half and closed out the scoring in the 3rd quarter.

A tweak in the Fair Lawn
offense had Nieman lugging the pigskin and Mike Laboy replacing him on the
offensive line. Zach Parisi and Deshawn Roberts gained yardage too and QB
Dillon Rinaldo ran for a 1st down and passed to David Rodriguez. On
“D,” Frank Ortoll and Terwilliger made TD saving tackles. Jacob Baron, Thomas
Koike, Nieman, Perez, Justin Williams and others made big plays. In the 2 year
old rivalry the LANCERS have
outscored our CUTTERS 92-0. The
shutout was the 90th in FLHS
history while our CUTTERS have
shutout the opposition 82 times.

Fair Lawn’s BNC Liberty Division was shutout
against outside opposition. In addition to Fair Lawn’s loss, the FIGHTING MUSTANGS of Clifton High were
smashed 48-0 by the MAROONS of
Ridgewood and the champion BULLDOGS of
Passaic County Technical Institute suffered their first loss 35-7 at the hands
of the PATRIOTS of Wayne Hills. The GHOSTS of Paterson Eastside had a Bye.
The Division is 7-12 (.368) against outside opposition. I took in the thrilling
24-17 Northern Highlands overtime win over Bergenfield Saturday and enjoyed
reminiscing with Bergenfield announcer Howie Conklin. I’ve wanted to get to a
Northern Highlands home game and visit my predecessor as Fair Lawn’s announcer.
Joe Hausmann, for whom my twin brother, Bill, and I were “spotters” for many
years but it hasn’t been possible.

On Saturday at 1:00 our CUTTERS host the GHOSTS of Paterson Eastside at SASSO
FIELD in the final regular season home game which will be senior
recognition day. During 1947-54 and 1983 Fair Lawn went 5-4 (.556) over
Eastside. This was sweetened by the fact that, until FLHS opened in 1943, most Fair Lawn students attended Eastside. A
few students from the Columbia Heights section went to Hawthorne and the
Radburn section students went to Ridgewood. Fair Lawn is 1-2 (.333) against the
GHOSTS in BNC Liberty Division action in 2010-12 and our CUTTERS and the GHOSTS are
knotted up at 6-6 (.500).

Fair Lawn comes into the game at 0-7 and has been
outscored 291-52 for an average 42-7 loss. Eastside is 2-5 (.286) and has been
outscored 220-110 for an average 31-16 loss. At the Passaic Tech at Kennedy
game October 26th I enjoyed reminiscing with highly successful
Ridgewood Coach Chuck Johnson and he said he believes Eastside is by far the
best 2-5 team around! Our CUTTERS
will be looking to get back into the lead in the series and avenge last year’s
last second 29-27 loss. I know they’ll give it their all and I think they can
pull it off. From here it looks like Fair Lawn 21 – Eastside 18. GO CUTTERS GO!!!